


So With His Memory They Brim

by AnnaofAza



Series: When We Two Parted [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Harry Hart Lives, M/M, Pining, Post-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4628049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Eggsy,' Harry remembers, like pulling out a key from a hiding place. 'Eggsy.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	So With His Memory They Brim

**Author's Note:**

> This can be considered a companion piece to [something I wrote for Hartwin Week](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4617546), but also can stand alone. (Thanks to all who cried, begged for a sequel, or called me Satan.)
> 
> The title is from [ this poem](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175761).

When Harry gets home, there’s an envelope in his mailbox.

Inside is a medal—a pink circle with a gold-wrought symbol in the middle, the lines of it twisted like rope. Harry palms it, rubbing his thumb down the alternately smooth and bumpy surface. He tilts it from different angles, trying to see if this has left here by mistake. Surely such a fine thing wasn’t for an old British professor smack-dab in the middle of the Midwest United States, living in a cramped apartment with flimsy furniture.

On the back is what appears to be a date: 12-19-97.

This must be a war medal, and Harry needs to turn it over somewhere so some poor soul can get it back. But he stops.  

It’s not because he’s going to pawn it, or because it looks aesthetically pleasing. There’s just something about it that makes Harry want to keep it close. The whole thing hangs from a simple chain, and without a thought, Harry slips it around his neck. It feels warm against his skin, as if it’s been recently held against someone’s chest.

For some reason, he pictures the young man outside of the church that day, in the heavy black suit, the one with the odd questions and the dead friend. Harry doesn’t exactly know what it’s like, losing someone like that, but when the man spoke, it was as if someone was reaching inside his chest and tugging, snarling his heart like a ball of yarn.

 _Eggsy,_ he remembers, like pulling out a key from a hiding place. _Eggsy._

* * *

He has a class to teach the next day, so Harry heads out the door with his briefcase and the medal tucked underneath his shirt. His students seem content enough to sit in an air-conditioned classroom and listen to him lecture. Some of them have even done their reading, so Harry counts it as a success when the quizzes come back and none of them have ridiculous answers such as _your mom_ or drawings of platypuses.

Despite that a few base their knowledge from television shows, the class is, for the most part, behaved. Once, Harry had to step in when part of the room took sides in the _whether Merlin and Arthur were in love_ debate that wasn’t pertinent to the text they were reading at the time, and someone else ranted about how Guinevere was a cheating skank and started another argument with most of the female students. But lately, it’s just Harry lecturing and the class taking notes, flipping through their books when Harry points out quotes for one of their essays.

It’s when a student accidentally uses _Galahad_ instead of _Gawain_ that Harry pauses right in the middle of discussing the symbolism of the Green Knight, briefly closing his eyes as part of the right side of his head twinges.

_(“Congratulations. Welcome, Galahad, our newest recruit.”)_

“Professor?”

A woman—pre-med major, Harry recalls—is half-standing, and most of the class looks concerned or confused. Harry forces himself to snap out of images of an old man with fraying white hair and dark glasses seated at the head of a long table. The glasses seem familiar, and he briefly reaches to touch his face, but when his fingers brush skin, Harry’s almost disappointed.

“I’m fine, it’s just a headache,” he reassures the class, and goes back to lecturing.

* * *

 Harry continues on without another incident, though he’s beginning to have more of those strange dreams.

The nightmares are from the church—the lack of control, the unfamiliar finesse of strikes, the eerily graceful dance with death. People scream and howl and pick up things to smash against their fellow congregation members—or forgo finding a weapon and simply turning their body into one. There’s rage coursing through the air, something Harry can’t remember nor understand. 

He’s filled with unspeakable fury, snatching out weapons from his person or from others—he neatly steps over the gore smearing across the polished hardwood floors—he cuts and allows bodies to fall around him like rain—like the rain that’s pouring out of his body, warm and sticky—like blood on asphalt… 

Sometimes, he dreams of a young man, with soft honey-dark hair and eyes. The color of his eyes keeps changing from brown to green to blue, and his hair flickers between golden and shadowed. But it’s the smile he remembers, with accurate consistency, along with a black, bulky jacket with obnoxiously bright gold plates and a white cap.

He’s a remarkable match to the man from the church, but Harry doesn’t know if their resemblance was coincidence or a result of his imagination, because the smiling youth is now serious and pleading and devastated.

_(“Just stay right there; I’ll sort out this mess when I get back.”_

_And Harry walks away from him, out the door, and into the church.)_  

* * *

More things begin to seem out of place.

He sees a grey terrier and thinks of the sound of a gun fired, triumph, then cold disappointment and anger. He catches the smell of eggs at a local diner and hears teasing laughter and clinks of silverware. He hears the sound of explosions from a television next room over and feels anguish and horror and a heated blast against his face.

Kentucky, he notices, is  _hot._  He misses rain, gray skies, teases of sunlight.

The apartment feels too small now. He walks into another room, anticipating a computer or glass cases, but it’s simply filled with dingy carpet and faint sunlight. When Harry glances into a mirror, he expects to see glasses and a bespoke suit, even though his vision is nearly perfect and he can’t afford anything so well-tailored. On Saturdays and Sundays, as Harry instructs a roomful of adolescents to practice jabs on a punching bag, he thinks of watching a bald man typing furiously on a keyboard in front of three large computer screens.

_(“Quite a candidate you have, Galahad,” the man says, as a repeat of glass shattering out of a water-filled room plays. “Lee’s son, huh? Bet Arthur didn’t think much of that.”_

_“I believe in him,” Harry says, idly. “Now, tell me, Merlin, what’s this professor you were talking about?”)_

* * *

The medal stays around his neck.

Harry’s haunted by the dreams he has tonight, about a wildly-sobbing woman and an oblivious boy, playing on the ground with a snow globe. He feels a profound weight of failure and regret that latches on to him for the next few days. His lectures are automatic and robotic, students jotting down notes about dragons and Una and the knight. Harry implores the class to take notice of how unfair the narrative is to Una, how her hero fails her time and time again, and wants to sink into the nearest chair and bury his face in his hands.

 _(“I don’t want your help!” the woman screams at him. “I want my husband back!”)_

* * *

_Dear Eggsy,_ he suddenly thinks, as he’s writing a reply to the chair, who's been inquiring about Harry's health.

His eyes are sore from staring at the brightly-lit screen in the dim light of the campus library. Around him, students are frantically typing last-minute papers or watching videos from Netflix accounts. The smells of smoky printer ink and stale coffee waft in the enclosed space, with the sounds of quiet chattering and clicks of keyboards.

_Dear Eggsy…_

_(“I see a young man with potential—“_

_A black-and-white picture of a soldier stares into the lenses with solemn, thin lips._

_“A young man who is loyal—“_

_A train roars by, underneath a boy yelling, “Fuck yeah!”_

_“Who can do as he’s asked—“_

_A blurry figure gazes up at the golden letters and suits in a display window…_

_“And wants to do something good with his life.”_

_Someone clutches another person in a jumpsuit, falling from the sky…)_

Harry keeps his fingers on the keys, but nothing else comes.

* * *

He decides to treat himself and get his mind off of things by watching a movie on his boxy television that one of his neighbors was giving away when she moved out. It still has crooked rabbit ears—one of them broken off at the end—and there’s static if he stands up to use the bathroom or get a drink, but Harry’s simply content to recline on a pile of pillows and blankets tonight. He has a sandwich from the campus store and chamomile tea in a mug. Part of him rebelled at using the tea bags in the cupboard, so Harry picked up a box of tea leaves and a strainer for his kettle before he went home.

He finds a British comedy, with a woman who gets into ridiculous romantic entanglements with her sleazy boss and argues with a pathetic man who’s either pining or being a complete wanker. It’s amusing—though he does feel bad for the lead—so when a commercial interrupts, Harry actually groans.

When he gets to refill his mug, a trailer plays for a repeated release at the local theater. A brunette in a black dress stands on a lawn, demanding, _“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you—and full as much heart!”_

Something tightens around his chest, and Harry shakes his head at his sentimentality. He must be getting soft in his old age, and watches flames leap out and lick the bottom of the kettle. Dramatic music swells and fills the apartment, and at an exasperated rapping from the opposite wall, Harry moves to turn the volume down.

 _“And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth,”_ the actress continues, static flickering across her nearly tearful face, _“I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.”_

* * *

The next, and final, dream appears strangely quiet.

He’s on a plane, sitting in a seat all by himself. There are no passengers on the plane, but Merlin— _the pilot? No, not the pilot_ —has just announced takeoff to Kentucky. Resting on the fold-out table from the seat in front, there’s a laptop and a glass of gin. Harry looks briefly out the window—blue with clouds—then glances back at his laptop.

Then, suddenly, he begins to type.

His fingers move slowly, as if through water, but every word he types is sure and sincere:

**_Dear Eggsy,_ **

_(Eggsy. The smiling man from his dreams, the somber one from nearly a month ago, one in the same. Gary “Eggsy” Unwin.)_

**_If you are reading this letter, the bad news is that I’ve died in the line of duty, and this has been passed on._ **

_(He’d died?)_

_(A man—short, African-American, glasses—stands in front of the church he stumbles out of. He can feel something drying on his face, his fingers, his neck, and when Harry rubs at it, dark red-brown, congealing flakes peel off. The same man talks to him, but Harry doesn’t understand what he’s saying. Yet Harry does understand the weapon at his side, as well as a sharp-eyed woman dressed in all black with silver legs. Around him are men pointing rifles, and it’s not just the heat or former exertion that makes him begin to sweat._

_When the man raises the gun, it goes off.)_

**_A Kingsman agent is always prepared for the inevitability of death. Many a man is, but for me, it’s been like trying to run from your own shadow. It clings to you, Eggsy—the deaths, the lies, the guilt…_ **

_(“Can’t you see that everything I have done has been trying to repay him?”_

_‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ Harry immediately wants to say, but a beeping alert interrupts him.)_

**_I’ve modified this numerous times, and I can’t tell you in enough words how important you are to me—but I will say this: you were never some redemption quest for your father. You’re no failure or disappointment, and I’m deeply, deeply sorry for saying such hurtful words to you. You’re also not simply a candidate or student or protégé. You are—and I sincerely hope you don’t think I’m being forward—a friend._ **

_(“Next lesson: how to make a proper martini.”_

_Eggsy—in that familiar jacket and cap—grins, rising from his chair. “Yes, Harry!” he hisses excitedly._

_Harry steps aside to allow the younger man to pass through the doorway, and places one hand at the small of his back to guide him over a raised platform that’s tripped him many a time in the dark._

_At least, that’s what he tells himself.)_

**_I know, ostensibly, I’ve been teaching you in our time together, but on the other hand, I genuinely believe that you’ve been teaching me, too…_ **

_(When he shows Eggsy his reflection in the tri-folded mirror, Eggsy stares at himself, doubt in his features, until he compares the situation to_ My Fair Lady. _Harry, surprised, smiles softly and chuckles._

 _“You’re full of surprises. Yes, like_ My Fair Lady _.”_ )

**_I taught you all about good clothes and fine wine and foreign languages and nuclear bombs, but you’ve taught me what was missing from my life._ **

_(When Eggsy sits down at the chair Harry pulls out for him, he gapes at the silver domes that cover hot plates, along with the careful placements of silverware. Eggsy takes in the fresh smell of crispy, fatty bacon, fluffy, golden scrambled eggs, and a small stack of light pancakes with wide eyes, but when Harry hands him a roll from a tray, Eggsy takes it with a slightly trembling hand. His cheeks flush pink from the steam rising off the newly-uncovered plates, and his black polo shirt is as ruffled as his early-morning bedhead._

_“All of this for me?”)_

**_I love my job and it brings me enormous satisfaction, but at the same time, I’ve been very lonely over the years._ **

_(An umbrella snaps forward and catches a man right on the pressure joints. Harry punches and dodges and throws himself across the room with expert precision and speed, aware of the young man’s astonished, open-mouthed expression of awe. His veins are alive within the heat of the battle, as if a spark had landed on the driest wood.)_

**_I’ve treasured all the time we’ve spent talking about the stupid, little things._ **

_(Eggsy rocks forward, tears in his eyes, as Harry recounts the story of how he got the silver bird that’s sitting on his kitchen table. “Blimey, I can’t believe Merlin’s a joker!” He points to a framed collection of butterflies. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those collectors?”)_

**_Thank you for bringing some warmth into my life…_ **

_(He turns to Harry, then, as morning sunlight peeks through the opened curtains, and smiles.)_

**_All we need is a little opportunity and someone to believe in us._ **

_(Setting down a glass of honey-golden alcohol, Harry picks up a phone in his office, walls painted red and with covers of garish newspapers. “The Unwins called in their favor?” he asks curiously. “Right. I’ll be down there in a few minutes.”_

_He glances at a piece of stationary on his desk, labelled with a golden K—for Kingsman—and scrawled with the words ‘Lancelot Candidates.’_

_And Harry leaves it on the table, grabbing his umbrella on the way out.)_

**_All my best,_ **

**_Harry_ **

* * *

He wakes up, heart pounding and sheets soaked with sweat. The hot weather penetrates deep into his uninsulated apartment, and impatiently, he kicks off the blanket and forces himself up when the realization comes to him.  

Groping for his phone in dark, Harry flips it open and dials a number, medal clenched in his palm.

He knows just what to say: “Oxfords, not brogues.”

**Author's Note:**

> Parts of the letter Harry writes to Eggsy are from the canon [goodbye note in the original comic.](http://hartwin-danny.tumblr.com/post/124917064642/this-is-the-full-letter-kingsmanhartwin-your) However, I've changed a few lines to suit the story, and because Harry (aka "Jack") and Eggsy (aka "Gary") are related in the comic, I do not touch incest with a ten foot pole. 
> 
> Also, I do not own 'Merlin,' 'Bridget Jones's Diary,' or 'Jane Eyre.' I just like to make certain references when the leads are British and one of them is Colin Firth.


End file.
